Measuring the quality of place in aerotropolis: A descriptive study on the creative class theory quality of place amenities in operational aerotropolises in the United States

Abstract

The area surrounding a major airport has been widely conceptualised as an aerotropolis in recent decades. Many aerotropolises position themselves as a premier business and residential location, oriented to knowledge-intensive firms and knowledge workers (Creative Class). Nevertheless, aerotropolises’ shortcoming in urban quality sometimes hinders them from attracting the targeted high-status ‘customers’. This descriptive study empirically measures the urban quality in the aerotropolises of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), LA/Ontario International Airport (ONT) and O’Hare International Airport (ORD) by counting the frequencies of amenity dimensions defined and described in creative class theory literature. ArcGIS Business Analyst is used for data collection. Based on the sum of z-scores of amenity categories, findings suggest that the quality of place indexes of ONT, DFW and ORD aerotropolises are 4.961, 1.8 and -3.76 respectively. Findings also suggest the top four most prominent amenity dimensions, i.e., restaurants, cafes, beauty parlours and sports facilities, are consistent throughout the sample aerotropolises. This study adds to the Airport City body of knowledge by defining and providing data about urban quality in aerotropolises. The data could be used for future studies to analyse the causality between amenity provision and location decision of knowledge-intensice firms and the Creative Class on an urban precinct level.

Keywords

• aerotropolis
• airport city
• creative class
• knowledge-intensive firms
• Amenity

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